Liberalism

Forget the bizarre and evil concept of national original sin that is the malignant idea that America is built upon “systemic racism." America’s true systemic flaw, arising at the time of those miserable progressives of yesteryear and continuing up through the miserable progressives of this rotten year, is what we now call “liberalism.”

The Supreme Court delivered surprising wins to liberals this week in a pair of blockbuster decisions that forbade businesses from firing workers base on their sexual orientation or gender identity and halted the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Obama-era DACA program, which shields the young migrants known as “Dreamers.”

Liberals are constantly demanding that we “believe the science.” I’m all for that. But the problem is “the science” changes, often quickly. Worse yet, what some want to call science is increasingly politics masquerading as science. And nothing has demonstrated that better than the coronavirus.

Consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In an April press conference discussing the coronavirus pandemic she said, “If you don’t believe in science and you don’t believe in governance, that is their [Republicans’] approach.”

Understandably, given its potential for large scale loss of life and severe economic disruption, coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic has so far focused on its short-term health and economic impact. Eventually, however, we will have to start thinking about the longer-term repercussions of the virus—particularly its political fall-out.

The US Democratic Party is undergoing something of an identity crisis as it debates what direction to take ahead of the looming battle with President Donald Trump, a Republican, in November.

A tension between the so-called progressive wing of the party, led by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and the moderates like Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg is dominating the primary elections.

Let's break it down by issues and compare the current field to figures in history and leading politicians from the UK.

Clarence Thomas’s life is an emotional testament to the persistence of God’s grace amid the highs and lows of the American story. “I come from regular stock,” says the highest-ranking, longest-serving African-American public servant in a new documentary, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas In His Own Words.” His story is at once the epitome of the best and the worst of America.

Even though the national economy is humming along nicely, the liberal states of New York and California are poised to lose congressional seats due to an ongoing exodus according to US Census Bureau population estimates released this week.

The Empire State and the Golden State are among 27 states and the District of Columbia which have lost residents due to domestic migration over the last two years.

Michael Brendan Dougherty has written one of the best pieces of political and cultural analysis that I’ve seen in a while. It’s a short essay called “Trump Is Incidental To The Culture War,” and it’s well worth a read. In it, he offers a theory for why Democratic presidential candidates aren’t reaching rightward to try to peel off voters from Trump, as they have successfully done against Republicans in past elections. In fact, as MBD points out, they’re either pushing harder to the Left, or at least holding to strongly left culture-war positions.

And the dead end of illiberalism. Outsiders to Rightworld, and even some insiders, were mystified by the explosion of conservative commentary occasioned by New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari’s attack on our colleague David French. Both men are socially conservative Christian writers. What could occasion such fierce polemics between supporters of each? But perhaps there should have been less surprise: Debating first principles is among the oldest traditions of conservatives.

Today is International Workers’ Day, a holiday with socialist origins. Its name hearkens back to a time when the political Left was ostensibly devoted to the cause of human welfare. These days, however, some on the far Left care less about the wellbeing of people than they do about making sure that people are never born at all. How did these radicals come to support a massive reduction in human population, if not humanity’s demise?